


Beneath the Skin

by msgenevieve



Category: Prison Break
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-17
Updated: 2009-12-17
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:10:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/msgenevieve/pseuds/msgenevieve
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What she feels is a natural human attraction.  It would be foolish - in so many ways - to imagine he feels anything beyond the same. Spoilers through to #112.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Beneath the Skin

~*~

 

_You seem nervous. _

_I do?_

_You're sweating._

_Must be the needles. Never really got used to them. _

_Somehow, with diabetes and that tattoo, I find that hard to believe._

 

~*~

 

The first thing she notices about Michael Scofield is his eyes. Dark-lashed and piercing, their colour is a startling compromise between blue and green. To her annoyance, she finds herself almost reluctant to return his gaze directly.

The second thing is his hands.

She works briskly through what will become their usual routine - cradling his hand in hers to prick his fingertip, smearing his blood onto a testing strip – but she cannot help admiring the aesthetic beauty of his hands. His tanned fingers are long and well-shaped, his fingernails manicured. Definitely not workman's hands, she decides, even though she has no idea what he was before he came to Fox River. His file merely says 'unemployed', but for some reason she finds that hard to believe.

His fingertips are smooth to the touch, and she wonders if he makes a point of pricking alternate fingers every time he tests his blood sugar. Is it vanity? Squeamishness? Or simply a way of asserting a measure of control over the uncontrollable?

She rolls up his sleeve to administer his insulin, and she thinks she has at least part of the answer. His tattoos are the most intricate she's ever seen, and after almost three years in Fox River, she's seen quite a few. He tells her that he's had Type 1 Diabetes since he was ten, and she wonders how a little boy of ten reacted to the news that he needed to deal with needles every day for the rest of his life. Perhaps the tattoos are his way of choosing the terms on which the needles scar his skin.

And perhaps she's thinking about this far too much.

She administers his shot, discusses with him just how things work for a diabetic in Fox River, and is pleasantly surprised when he makes her laugh not once, but twice.

 

~*~

 

_I guess we'll be seeing a lot of each other, then._

They do.

She usually sees him once a day. Sometimes, when he's invaded her thoughts to the point that it makes her restless, she ensures she's not available for his appointment. After all, testing blood sugar and injecting insulin is something Katie can handle with both hands tied behind her back.

Unfortunately, she often sees him more than once a day, something that doesn't surprise her. For all his air of steely calm, he is still a beautiful man with soft hands. She patches him up each time and sends him straight back to the wolves, all the while telling herself that the hollow feeling in her chest is simply the frustration any doctor would feel for a patient at risk.

Sometimes, she almost believes it.

 

~*~

 

_You needed help, and I came to find you._

He appears from nowhere, his outstretched hand a lifeline out of hell. She stares up at him in disbelief, her eyes stinging with both tears and smoke. There is a split-second of hesitation – the blood is roaring hotly in her ears but her body is frozen – then she puts her life in his hands.

They crawl and slither over dirty metal pipes, but that's not what she will remember afterwards. She remembers how easily he'd made her laugh, how he'd refused to meet her eyes when he explained why he was there, how safe she'd felt with him. She remembers when he'd touched her, his hands tight on her waist, his eyes burning into hers with a sudden, questioning urgency that seemed to shock them both.

Afterwards, though, she also remembers that he has lied to her again, and that makes it much easier to forget the feel of his hands.

 

~*~

 

_Toes are overrated._

She finds herself reading through his patient file more often than is necessary, as if the sterile facts and figures it contains might give her an insight into the complex man she's now knows he is. Katie catches her more then once, and beneath her nurse's teasing words she hears an unspoken caution. Not that she needs one, of course.

On her 29th birthday, she bandages his maimed foot, trying not to dwell on the fact that his feet are as well-shaped as his hands and his remaining eight toes are long and tanned. She decides to launch into a lecture on proper foot care for diabetics – something she's quite sure he already knows - when he distracts her by asking about the flowers in her room. She tells him more than she later knows is wise, and she has the oddest feeling that his vivid eyes see what little she's left unsaid.

Two days later - two seconds after she tells him that he wouldn't be able to make her smile - she finds a perfectly-made paper rose on her desk. She lifts it to her nose as if she expects it to be scented, something that would been rather difficult to achieve in his current surroundings, but knowing what she now knows about Michael Scofield, she wouldn't have been at all surprised.

She puts the flower in her cabinet and finds herself smiling at odd moments for the rest of the afternoon. Because it's much easier to think of his artist's hands creating something beautiful rather than clutching an improvised shiv.

 

~*~

 

_When I'm around you, I'm not careful. _

She tells herself that the only thing worse than being attracted to an inmate is being attracted to a married inmate. It helps, at least until she sees him and the determined charm of his smile chips away at her resolve.

She tries to be detached. She tries not to care that he didn't trust her enough to tell her so many things – about his brother being at Fox River, his extraordinary medical history, the wife who just needed a Green Card – but it sticks in her throat like a burr.

They slide back into an uneasy, unspoken truce, and she has the unsettling feeling of beginning a dance in which she does not know the steps.

As the days pass, his hands grow rougher. She feels the scraped skin beneath her fingertips, sees the scratches on the backs of his hands, the fingernails that are no longer perfectly manicured. Then one day, he comes in with his fingertips so scratched up that they're almost bleeding. She manages not to wince, but it bothers her a great deal. More than it should, of course, but she's now well-practiced in avoiding that particular train of thought.

After that day, she makes a point of jabbing a different finger every time she tests his blood sugar. It's a foolish notion, but she is suddenly afraid if his hands become indistinguishable from those of every other prisoner, he'll lose something vital that sets him apart. She's afraid that if he becomes one of them, he will no longer remember how to be the man he was.

And if he no longer remembers, she will never truly know him.

The thought disturbs her to the extent that she redoubles her efforts to distance herself. She tries not to despair when she sends him back to the wolves. She tells herself that what she feels is a natural human attraction; that it would be foolish - in so many ways - to imagine he feels anything beyond the same.

And every time they meet, while it's still his eyes she notices first, it's the feel of his hand in hers that she remembers the longest.

 

~*~


End file.
